


Broken John

by streamoflillies



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, But it's there, Canon Temporary Character Death, Drugs, John and Sherlock cry a lot, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, So much angst, not really shippy, so probs ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:06:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streamoflillies/pseuds/streamoflillies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Richenbach. John is broken and he just can't cope anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken John

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this forever ago, and it's definitely not the greatest. Everyone is probably out of character but I can't bring myself to pull it apart and rewrite it. And I realized that Lestrade doesn't actually show up at all... 
> 
> This is my first work that I am posting anywhere, feedback is appreciated. Also I have no clue what I am doing with the tags, so if you think a warning is needed please let me know.

**John**

For the first few months John tried to cope with Sherlock’s death the normal way. He tried to help in the same way Sherlock had, but the pain was just too much. He would look at the crime scene and wonder what Sherlock would have been able to deduce from the skid marks on the road, mud on the victim’s shoes, and the way that they had fallen to the ground. He was only able to do that for a month before he just couldn’t anymore.

He had been unable to clear out Sherlock’s things, Mrs. Hudson cleaned out the experiments before they became biohazards, but the things on the table and Sherlock’s bedroom weren’t ever dealt with. The case files were never cleaned up and filed, John would eat his meals at the desk, because removing the things from the table meant that he had accepted that Sherlock was never coming back.

Mrs. Hudson tried to get him to find a flatmate, but after Sherlock no one could compare. John started seeing everyone as he imagined Sherlock had, dull, boring people doing boring things with their boring lives. Another flatmate could never provide that rush of adrenaline that happened when Sherlock and John worked on cases, Sherlock rattling off all these things he deduced and then explaining them, chasing the criminals through alleys, falling asleep to the violin music, even the head rush he got after Sherlock saved him from Moriarty.

* * *

 

Six months later he had a mental breakdown, and found himself curled up in Sherlock’s coat on the couch. That’s when he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to get over this. His brilliant roommate who was unlike any other person John had ever met, had committed suicide right in front of him. He may have been able to get over it with a therapist’s help, but after one had said that he should try adding to the blog to cope, John had just never gone back. He went into Sherlock’s room and found his drug stash. John was a doctor he knew how to give injections, the first one was beautiful. John started seeing hallucinations, Sherlock would come to him as an angel, or just as Sherlock.

**Mycroft**

This went on for a couple weeks before Mycroft found out. He came into the flat every few weeks to check up on John, and this time he found him in a drug induced coma on the floor of the flat. John had lost a lot of weight and Mycroft knew from experience with Sherlock what the needle on the ground meant. He checked John into a rehab center, but John didn’t want to recover, he just wanted to slip away and join Sherlock. John would “recover” at the rehab centers, but as soon as he got back to the flat he would shoot himself up again. Mycroft knew the truth though, Sherlock wasn’t dead, he had faked his own death (with Mycroft’s help of course) to keep John safe. Sherlock was undercover taking down Moriarty’s network. Mycroft tried to get John to recover, he felt that he had been charged with making sure John lasted long enough for Sherlock to have something to come back to.

**Sherlock**

6 months after Mycroft found John on the floor of the flat, Sherlock came to London to check in and let Mycroft know how things were going. After he told Mycroft what he had been doing for the past 6 months he asked about John. Mycroft tried to tell him that John was fine, but Sherlock could read in Mycroft’s posture that he was lying.

“Really Mycroft, you can’t lie better than that yet?”

“I don’t know what you mean Sherlock.”

“You know very well what I mean. What’s happened to John?”

“He had a breakdown, and I found him in the flat.”

“And?”

“He’s in a drug rehab center.”

Sherlock took a step back in disbelief “What are you saying, Mycroft?”

“When I found him he had been using drugs for about 2 weeks. It looked like he had gotten into your stash.”

“When did this happen?”

“A couple days after your last visit.”

“And he’s still in rehab?”

"He’s just as stubborn as you were at times, Sherlock. They let him out because he’s ‘clean’ and in the next fw days he’s gotten ahold of drugs again.”

“Why?”

“Because you left him broken Sherlock. I told you that John wouldn’t take your ‘death’ well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Because you never leave me with any way to contact you. You came in told me who you had killed over the last 6 months, and a couple things that you needed me to do, and then you fell off the radar again.”

“You’re the one who suggested that, Mycroft.”

“Only because I didn’t expect you to do it. This is useless, he needs you Sherlock. Here’s the address” Mycroft handed Sherlock a small scrap of paper that he had just written on. “But I should warn you he doesn’t look so good.”

“But he’s still John.” Sherlock said as he left the room.

* * *

Sherlock took a taxi to the rehab center where John was. As the nurse led him to the room she told him that Mycroft and Harry were the only two visitors he had ever gotten.

“I was beginning to worry that he didn’t have any normal friends.” She said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well he only ever gets visited by his sister and that government official.”

“That ‘government official’ is my brother.”

“Oh sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“It’s fine. It’s a perfect description of him. I asked him to watch over John for me while I was...gone.”

“Oh are you two...together.”

“No” Sherlock said firmly as they reached the room. “Just flatmates.”

John was asleep when Sherlock entered the room, so he sat in a chair in John’s room until he woke up, thinking about what to say.

When John woke up he didn’t notice Sherlock at first and when he did he simply muttered “Oh, great i’m hallucinating again” and rolled over to go back to sleep.

In that moment Sherlock realized just how broken John was. He went over to him, picked him up - far too easily as the previously sturdy army man had wasted away until he was almost as skinny as Sherlock - and cried. He cried for the pain that he had felt, the pain he had caused John and for causing John to find solace in drugs.

Sherlock understood the pain that rehab would be, so he decided to get Mycroft to check John out of the rehab center and took him home.

* * *

For the first few days John wouldn’t believe that it was actually Sherlock. He slept most of the time, wrapped up in Sherlock’s trench coat. He had left it at the flat when Mycroft moved him to the rehab center, and it was the first thing he grabbed when he entered the flat. Sherlock was weaning him off the drugs gradually, with Mycroft checking in on them at least once a week.

**John**

It took a week before John was coherent enough to carry on a conversation. When he finally believed that it was Sherlock he sat up and said the first thing that came to mind. “Why did you leave?”

“I had to John, Moriarty would have killed you.”

“So then, he’s not dead either?”

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s dead, but he had already given the order, so...I had to die.”

“Did you even consider what it would do to me?”

“I did it to protect you, John...I didn’t even consider that you would start doing drugs.”

“Do you know why I started doing drugs, Sherlock?”

“Mycroft said you had some sort of a mental breakdown.”

“That was part of it. But in reality it was because I started to see the world the way you do Sherlock, everyone seemed so small and pathetic compared to you. I understood why you were so hard to get along with, it wasn’t because you thought yourself better, It was because you notice things and people don’t like that. That caused you to distance yourself from the world, and you lost touch with reality. You dealt with your loneliness through drugs and I thought I could do the same thing. The first time I was smart I gave myself a small dose but it wasn’t enough to make me forget, So I started taking enough that I would pass out for a few hours. It was the only time that I could close my eyes and not see you, Sherlock, you lying dead on the pavement.” John put his head in his hands and started to cry.

All through this Sherlock had been sitting in his armchair listening and now he came over to the couch and sat beside John. “I’m back now you don’t have to believe I’m dead anymore.” Sherlock said tenderly.

John leaned on Sherlock and told him more about what had happened while he was gone. His inability to even open his laptop, due to the fact that he would remember the times that he had to wrestle it away from Sherlock. His inability to walk around town because every time he saw somewhere where there had been a crime scene, or they had caught a criminal, or even someone who reminded him of Sherlock he would start crying. And all through it Sherlock sat there supporting John and listening.

When John finished Sherlock said one thing “I’m sorry, John.” This surprised John because he didn’t think that Sherlock knew how to apologize. This started him crying again and this time Sherlock started crying too. John understood why Sherlock has to fake his death, he just didn’t want to admit it at the time. He enjoyed this apologetic Sherlock. It proved that he did have feelings.

**Sherlock**

In all it took two months before John was clean. In those two months Sherlock changed. He was now caring for John so he would go buy groceries, and pay the bills. Sherlock finally began to act like an adult, not a child with a superiority complex. In his year undercover he had learned to hide his deductions. He still hid his deductions in public, except when John was with him because he knew how much John had missed them.

Occasionally John has a relapse and tries to get Sherlock to get him some drugs, but Sherlock now understands what Mycroft went through trying to get Sherlock clean and he refuses. Sherlock hopes that he never has drug cravings at the same time as John, because he doesn’t know if he would have the willpower to say no to John if he was having to stop himself as well. But they will cross that bridge when they come to it.

 

 


End file.
